


triumph in loss

by straddling_the_atmosphere



Series: missing black sails scenes [3]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, Rare Pairings, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 23:38:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15278721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straddling_the_atmosphere/pseuds/straddling_the_atmosphere
Summary: Two conversations between Julius and Silver, one between Julius and the Maroon Queen, and how Julius wins. From 4x06 on.





	triumph in loss

“You don’t think we can win,” Silver says and Julius watches him warily. He’s grief-torn, this man, and Julius doesn’t want to be near him when he starts to lash out.

“I don’t think we can win, now. Like this,” Julius corrects.

Silver twirls a dagger between his fingers. He looks distant. “Captain Flint and--Madi thought we could.” His voice catches on her name. Julius didn’t know the girl personally, only knew what he’d heard. That she was young and intelligent but idealistic. A girl who grew up sheltered, in an island of paradise. He has never met a person like him with no scars. It looks like he never will. Visible scars, anyway. He knows even if Madi was raised for the majority of her life away from under the white thumb, she will still feel the pain of her people. 

“Captain Flint doesn’t care about the costs,” Julius says carefully. “He would rather burn this entire island to the ground before giving it up.”

Silver clenches his jaw. “What is the point of her death then, if we give up?” 

“I can’t tell you that,” Julius says tiredly. “I can only say that when you spend your whole life fighting, when your existence itself is a war, that continuing to do so when there is a chance at peace, at rest, for even just a decade, is too sweet to resist.” He eyes him. “You have not experienced our struggle. But I sense that you have struggled in some way, your entire life. You are too afraid of war to not have.”

Silver swallows hard, fingers clenching around his crutch until his knuckles turn white. Julius doesn’t need to know John Silver’s past, in fact is patently uninterested in it. But he knows Silver has the ear of the war general they’ve put in charge of this, and he’s clever and shrewd in a way that Julius respects. It is good to keep a man like Silver as an ally. He watches as Silver forces his fingers to unclench, the color slowly bleeding back into them.

“I can’t--” He shakes his head. “It has to be worth it,” he says grimly. Julius sighs and shrugs one shoulder. 

“Perhaps.” Perhaps when Silver has wallowed in his grief enough, he’ll come to see it differently.

-

It is an interesting place, the island of the Maroons. Idyllic, and Julius thinks of those he couldn’t save with an ache in his chest, imagining his son running through forest, splashing in the creek water, his laughter echoing against the trees. Right now it is filled with pirates and former slaves alike, and everything is in uproar ever since word reached that their princess was alive. Julius makes his way through the throngs of people, stopping next to Silver’s familiar figure, standing away from the crowd with a pensive look on his face.

He glances at Julius. “I think I’m open to hear what you have to say now,” he says, and of course, Julius thinks, amused. Anything to keep those you love alive. That, he can understand. “But I won’t kill him.”

“That wouldn’t work anyway.” Julius leans against the tree nearby, watching Silver’s expression. “There is no better thing to keep a war going than a martyr. You saw that, when you thought the queen’s daughter dead. And Flint’s death will do nothing but incite more fighting. No, it will be better if he is alive. If he gives up.”

Silver snorts. “He’ll never do that.”

“Wouldn’t he?” Julius asks. “He is a man like anyone else. Find the weakness inside him, and expose it.”

Silver is quiet, a soft frown on his face. “There might be…” He trails off and frowns more, then shakes his head.

“I can handle the Maroon Queen,” Julius says, raising his eyebrows. “She doesn’t seem overly fond of you.”

“No,” Silver murmurs. “She isn’t.” He turns to look at Julius. “So, tell me, how does one stop a war and keep anyone else from dying?”

Julius smiles.

-

They meet often during that brief time between the pirates coming to the island and Flint and Silver off to rescue Madi. There’s something splintering in their relationship, but Julius stays well away from them--it’s not his job to fix the mess of white men anymore.

He finds the Maroon Queen smart and practical, more than willing to hear what he has to say. 

“I told her to think about what she was doing,” she murmurs one day. “My daughter. She is smart and a good leader, but she’s still young.”

“She is,” Julius agrees. If they save her, he’d like to meet her one day. The loyalty she has inspired from even the most disloyal men is something indeed. “But this will give her more time to become the leader you want her to be.”

“If it doesn’t break her spirit first,” she sighs. “You do not know my daughter, Julius. You make good points, but you have not seen her when she has something set in her mind. This will hit her worse than a blow.” She shakes her head. “She will survive, but I don’t know in what way that will be.”

“Will you follow your daughter’s wishes, or what’s best for your people?” Julius asks.

She gives him a sharp look. “Don’t presume to tell me how to rule. Your people respect you, but my people have been listening to me for far longer on this island. I know very well what I must do.”

Julius raises his hands. He won’t argue with that.

-

It ends like this--Silver kills the name of Captain Flint, gone and buried in smoke on that cursed island. He has a treaty, fresh with Julius’s words, with Jack’s ink, with the Maroon Queen’s signature.

And they live. Not happily, perhaps. But Julius was never doing this for Silver’s happiness. His people are alive, and free, and in the end, that’s all Julius has ever wanted.

**Author's Note:**

> rare pair but also julius and silver plotting and two black characters talking without a white character involved!


End file.
